Your thoughts

Why do these idiots think that they will be victorious in any debate with Rachel Maddow? I've seen her rip apart so many people (Tom Ridge included), and yet these other morons just keep showing up thinking that they will be able to score points against her. Maybe because she is always absolutely truthful, they may think that they will be able to use that against her... WRONG! She is absolutely truthful always, and that always benefits her.

Maybe they think that they are clever enough to be able to trip her up, or that they can slip something in that she isn't expecting, and that their false assertions will go unchallenged... WRONG! She's like my aunt's Chihuahua who is so protective of her food bowl that she snapped at my aunt as she was ADDING food to it! Rachel tenaciously refuses to let lies go unchallenged - at least not the most egregious of them, and the ones which damage the lying liars the most.

Maddow is one of the foremost among my personal heroes!

Posted by: Dick Mills | Dec 9, 2009 12:02:50 AM

If were lebian, I'd be writing Rachel Maddow love letters every day.

This guy is an absolute toolbag. He doesn't even know what's in his own book. He can't defend anything he promotes, and he tries to pass off his "bare minimum" requirements as a licence.

My dad died when I was 16. It didn't make me a lesbian. My best friend has an entirely "normal", "average", "all american" life - he is gay. And has known that he has been gay since he was about 8.

I hope, I really hope someone comes out like they did with Ted Haggard talking about all the crazy gay sex they've had with this guy in the last year. Then we can talk about how he is "stricly attracted to women". I almost feel bad for him, because I can't imagine how insanely painful and difficult it must be to spend every single moment of your life not only being something that your not, but staking your entire career, reputation, and life on the false ideas of you. It's one thing to be forced into a closet. It's entirely another to not only to actively and voluntarily put yourself in there, but belittle those who had the courage and strength to come out.

I give RM credit, because she could have absolutely tore this guy a new asshole, and she kept it so pinpoint civil. Kudos to her.

Posted by: Stef | Dec 9, 2009 12:40:24 AM

I applaud Rachel for her incisive questioning of this leader of hate, bigotry, and a charlatan of the anti-gay industry. He is a veritable mental vegetable hiding behind christianity to fleece the brainwashed, self-loathing gays who cannot seem to break free of their Christian programming.

Posted by: Mykelb | Dec 9, 2009 2:25:20 AM

Mr. Cohen got pwned. Well done, Rachael!

gawd I love this woman. . . You should also take a look at the interview with Mark Benjamin that came earlier in the broadcast.

I can't watch Rachel without remembering not that long ago when she was a guest on MSNBC & a radio host. . .people laughed at my shouting to "please give Rachel her own show". . .I'm happy to say there are some people baking crow today, and can't be prouder of Maddow & how she takes on issues.

Slam Dunk the snake oil salesman. . .way to go.

Posted by: Jon | Dec 9, 2009 10:56:29 AM

I LOVE Rachel Maddow!
Richard Cohen needs to JUST. STOP. NOW.
He AND Joseph Nicolosi are lying sacks of shit when it comes to their boasts about how many people they've helped or cured.
And they have NO support from any legitimate peer body whatsoever.
Which is a caveat that gay people should look for.
The struggle isn't with homosexuality.
The struggle is with religious indoctrination, which is so contradictory in the particular sense, hypocritical in the socio/political sense that anyone would have pathologies and insecurity from such trauma.

And that there are people with a commercial interest in exploiting the conditions under which gay people are forced to live, is a Munchausen proxy sort of issue.

Create the problem that makes a person unwell and in crisis, then pretend to be the answer/savior for the crisis, and all for the purpose of getting attention/sympathy.

If a doctor did that, he'd be legally barred from practice. The FTC frowns on people who require fear and ignorance to a dangerous extent and fleece people while doing it.
Cohen IS creepy.
Besides, I asked Joseph Nicolosi on Sean Hannity's show about the oft repeated assumption that absentee fathers create homosexuality.
So my question was: Doctor, please explain the higher incidence of fatherlessness in black households, but no discernable increase in homosexuality in those homes?

He chose to ignore the question and in a way Rachel asked Cohen a relevant question to the same subject about race and homosexuality. Although he probably would have insisted there IS more homosexuality in black, single mother homes and cited that Rachel didn't have the stats in front of her to dispute it.

Cohen's supposed backtracking on the use of data from Paul Cameron needs to be noted: He never says the statistics about gays being predators are wrong. He doesn't suggest that the reason for dropping them from the next edition of the book is that they have no basis in fact, or admits that Cameron is not a credible source.

He only acknowledges that the gays-as-predators meme is inflammatory.

Who will be the first to follow up with him on that?

Rachel talked about the only-half-joking offer to send Cohen to Uganda. I can only imagine he'd love to huddle -- in private -- with promoters of the kill-the-gays bill. Out of public view, he'd be free to tell scary stories about how many of the "thousands" of people he's counseled were molested at young ages by evil gay people.

On the whole, though, it's disquieting to see Cohen's visibility rise yet again. He's always thrived on being proven a fool on the national/international stage.